Patch Tuesday
It is that time again….Microsoft’s usual monthly update cycle. This month, Microsoft released four security bulletins which addressed 5 vulnerabilities in both, Windows, and Microsoft’s Office suite.
Here are the Security Bulletins with links explaining them in detail…..
Although it is of the utmost importance that all of these patches are implemented on your system, the two most critical updates are MS10-042 and MS10-045. For an indepth explanation of these two patches, you can visit the Security Research and Defence teams blog by clicking HERE.
As always, Microsoft has also updated the MRT (Malicious Software Removal Tool) as part of the monthly patch. The tool will automatically do a quick scan when the computer updates, but it is a good idea to manually run a ‘Full’ scan as soon as you can. To launch the MRT…..
XP – Click on Start>Run, then type MRT in the open dialog box and press Enter. The MRT will open, just follow the instructions and run a ‘Full Scan’
Vista and 7 – Click on Start, in the search dialog field, type in MRT and press enter and follow the instructions to run a ‘Full Scan’
Note that on a very small percentage of machines, I have found that the file extension is also required to launch this program. By that I mean, instead of typing in MRT, you may need to add the file extension and type MRT.exe instead of just MRT.
Now also of importance this month is Microsoft’s termination of support for computers that are running Windows XP with Service Pack 2. This means that these computers will no longer receive security updates from Microsoft and will be completely open to vulnerabilities being exploited by hackers. It is highly recommended that anyone who is still using XP SP2 to update to XP SP3 as soon as possible. To get this update, you can visit Microsofts Technet site and download and install Service Pack 3. Make sure that before you do this update, that all of your important data is backed up, as there have been a small percentage of computers which have crashed after this update was completed. Almost all of these crashes have been because an undetected malware program was also installed on that computer. I have installed SP3 on numerous computers and have never had an issue, but it is always better to lean towards the side of safety. Once this update has completed, you will need to continue running updates on your computer as installing SP3 will spawn numerous other updates. Just keep on running the Windows Updater until no new updates are available.
Windows XP Service Pack 3 will be supported, by Microsoft, until at least 2014.
